Chicken & Egg Salad Sandwich (198)

Today I'm having a chicken and egg salad sandwich. With Easter, was there ever any doubt that I'd be having this for lunch today?? I'll be eating boiled eggs for snacks for a week! I usually eat them with soy sauce, yolk tossed. I loooove boiled egg whites with shoyu, especially Kikkoman.

I used light mayo for the filling and so that with the bread already makes this a 5 point bento. The Jello eggs are probably 2 points since one is Sugar-free, but one is not. Those will zero out though, since I did a hundred squats earlier today and still have to walk to fiscal later (40 min walk). I still want to try that Spark People site and have been getting really useful tips via e-mail from them, but I find myself still looking at everything in a points mindset. Perhaps a combination of both will help me out. Easter waged war upon my midsection and came away with only a minor victory. I gained .2 pounds as of this morning.

Anyway, I toasted the bread to make it easier to cut and added chopped Costco chicken to the egg mixture, meaning I can use this one to start off my 10? 12? 20? Ways to Eat a Costco Chicken thing. I tucked in as many baby carrots as I could fit. I love d'Anjou pear (crunchy, not soft) so I sliced up a whole pear to fill up all that empty space. Next to the carrots is a silicone cup of cucumber pickles and then for dessert, my two Jello eggs! My cousin e-mailed me after she saw yesterday's post and was like, "omg me too!" The Jell-O egg frenzy is alive and well!

I still dunno what to do for #200. :( It's only 2 bento away! D:

Crab & Avocado Sandwich (194)

Sorry for the lack of bentos this week, but as I mentioned last Friday, we had a potluck on Monday. Lots of yummy foods were consumed including an apple/nut salad, lobster ravioli, healthy rice (from me, more on that later), enchiladas (which I didn't eat after someone said, WOW THEY'RE SPICY!), lots of fresh veggies, some REALLY ono fresh salsa with corn chips, salami & cheese on toothpicks, cold cut sandwiches, and lots of other goodies including the cuuuutest Easter cupcakes which I am so stealing for Easter this year.

Yesterday I stayed home because poor Baby Girl caught Buddy's stomach virus. She lay limp and miserable all day, the poor thing. ;(

As I mentioned, I made Healthy Rice, which is a very good and increasingly popular dish that I got from Grandma J who got it from someone else. It's very simple to make and I was asked for the recipe by at least half the office.

5 cups cooked rice
1 jar Nametake mushrooms
1 jar Ochazuke furikake
2 cups shelled edamame

Instructions:

1. Combine and stir together well.

I still have leftover ingredients so I'll be sure to make more for a bento once I buy more edamame. The best part of it all? I am allergic to mushrooms and I gave this a try, happily discovering that I can eat nametake mushrooms no problem! WOOHOO!!!

I haven't had a sandwich bento in quite some time so I decided to use some of the big pack of Costco imitation crab meat that I bought for a sandwich. Since mayo is a big no-no in calories and I've brought a lot of food for lunch, I opted to use Laughing Cow Light Swiss Cheese instead. It's possible this will turn out to be a terrible combo, we'll see!!


I lightly toast the bread but it gets a bit soggy in the fridge anyway, so I only toast it to make the cutting easier. I lined the sandwich box with lettuce, which I eat with the sandwich so nothing gets wasted. I also sliced up some avocado to make it less boring. With the cheese and the bread, this comes out to a 5 point bento. Each slice is 2 points! D:

The silliest part of this bento is the baby carrots. This bag was a bad batch, containing a lot of carrots that didn't get peeled well, so were therefore very bitter. Trust me, peeling little baby carrots is a severe pain in the ass. And I just noticed one of them had the nerve to fall out of place in the box before I took the picture. How rude!


I haven't had one of these in a while. Since this is an additional quarter avocado, this salad is 1 point. But, with all the walking I do for this job, the 1 point isn't a big deal. I get about 40 minutes of walking done per day just to pick up the mail. Pretty good, huh? :D


Lately I've been eating a lot of food so I have to keep myself under control by eating a lot of healthy food. I brought miso soup with tofu to eat in the morning, which was a good thing since Buddy had me up at 4:30 AM asking to eat everything under the sun. (catching up for 3 days of almost no eating) I brought more of my ancient kiwis along with their buddies the Senior Citizen Blueberries. If you look closely, you can see their wrinkles. As I've said before, I hate wasting fruit. You should have seen the nasty ass raspberries I very reluctantly threw away this morning. (I almost ate a few before tossing too, lol!)

It's more important than ever for me to be adhering to my diet now because my bridesmaid dress came in. I ended up being asked to pick my own and I chose this one. I love it! And even better, I fit quite perfectly into a size 6 petite! WOOOO! That's actually better than the dress, hehe!

PB&B Sammiches (158)

I'm at home all morning with Baby Girl as she woke up with a fever. This afternoon we're having my goodbye coffee hour at work, so I have to go in at lunchtime.

The OOT forum at Allakhazam is having this nut challenge in posts, so I decided to play by doing some peanut butter and mashed blackberry sandwiches. I'd been thinking about this during the week and finally today had a good opportunity to do a peanut butter bento!

I cut each slice out first; 6 gingerbread men and 6 trees. Then I put the peanut butter on both sides, then the mashed blackberries went in the middle. My very nice Aunty Cheryl sent us her yearly batch of yummy Lilikoi and Jaboticaba Jelly jars and I wanted to use it, but my blackberries are getting rotten already, so I wanted to use as many as possible. Thank you Aunty!! We had just run out of grape jelly!!

On the side I have more blackberries and then some sliced apple cut out with more Christmas cookie cutters in the shapes of angels, holly leaves, and candy canes. I should have been more creative and made the candy canes out of the skin parts and then made stripes, but I got a little lazy halfway through. Maybe next time!!

Sandwich Kit (151)

I wasn't going to make a bento this morning either because my two devils were giving me complete hell for refusing to give them Goldfish crackers for breakfast. Surround sound screaming with PMS on the side makes me go insane, but then I had a sudden inspiration for a bento and I found that making it really calmed me down.

I call this a sandwich kit, mostly because making it into a sandwich beforehand would have looked rather boring. I cut one slice of bread into two Christmas trees using a cookie cutter then arranged it on top of some chopped Romaine lettuce. To go into the sandwich I have the last of my kim chee crab and some sliced avocado. I added in some black olives and the last of my tomatoes (which I picked this morning) for snacking and to make it look more attractive.

I wish I had more to blog, but I'm still so busy I can't even think! I have to get a lot of stuff done to transition to my new job. Plus I am totally stressing about this weekend's game. GO BOWS!!!

Healthy Tuna (137)

When I used to attend UH Manoa, they had these great Marriott "cubes" which were portable food stands and they sold these really awesome sandwiches called "Healthy Tuna" and "Healthy Ham and Turkey" etc. They tasted really awesome because they had cucumbers, tomatoes, tons of crunchy lettuce, and whole wheat bread. Eating those sandwiches in college really got me into eating sandwiches and so today I made one slightly similar to bring back some old munching memories.


To make the tuna I used one can of tuna in water, 1 1/2 Tb of light mayo, onions, salt, pepper, and since I didn't have regular sized ones, diced tomatoes from my garden. Added in are cucumber slices and romaine lettuce. This sandwich comes out to a whoppping 5 points because each slice of bread is 2 points. :( Sadly, I was obviously cock-eyed when I cut the first sandwich piece because all the pieces are of different lengths. This is why I took the picture at this angle, to try to hide my noob cutting skills. lol

I've also brought some jabon with me to work to eat. People on the mainland call it pomelo and I just looove this stuff. Since it's showing up at the market that means Costco will carry them soon and that means the swap meat will have some soon! They're so awesome and I love both the white and pink varieties. The only downside to jabon are the "jabon farts". People who eat jabon know exactly what I'm talking about. LOL

My daughter will be taking a field trip soon, so a kid bento opportunity is coming up soon! The only bad part is, she's terrified of the thing featured at the trip destination. It's only a recent fear and we have no idea where it came from. And speaking of terror, boy did she scare the pants off me this morning. When you're on the freeway 15 minutes from your next stop, the words, "I have to go shishi." just strikes all the panic chords in your heart. (shishi is our Hawaii word for pee) All is well though, the carseat is dry. *whew*

Hammy Sammy (133)

Last night we ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory at Ward Warehouse, which is... dun dun dun! right across the street from Marukai! Imagine my squealing when I finally saw what I've never seen at Marukai in like 10 trips so far: EGG MOLDS!!!!! Woohoo!! They were the star and heart shapes, which are coincidentally, the only egg molds I do not have. I was so thrilled! I bought one for myself and 6 to sell to people. I didn't get a chance to take a picture, but this is the one I'm talking about. If you want one, I'm selling them for $2.99 and I'd guess that with the lightness of the item, shipping/handling would be around $2.00 to the USA. I'm placing a limit of 1 per person on these as I don't want people buying them just to sell on eBay. E-mail me at pikkopots at gmail.com if interested. Also, don't forget to enter my 30k celebration drawing! See yesterday's post for details!


If I had been a good girl at dinner last night, I would have stopped eating halfway through the meal when I was full, leaving me with a yummy leftovers lunch today. Alas, the mizithra cheese grabbed a hold of my senses and shook me silly and I ate it all. I also could not resist and joked to my friend Doug that "mizithra" is like "mithra with zi!" and he was like, "Oh god, you had to Final Fantasy our dinner!!" Muahahaha!

Anyway, I made a ham sandwich for lunch today. I put in some swiss cheese, fat free Ranch (cause I couldn't find the mayo), sliced cucumbers, and lettuce. There was space on the side of this box, so I sliced 3 baby dills and tucked them into the side. I can't wait to eat this!! I bought these thick ham steaks at Foodland once and froze them and they taste really super in sandwiches. The last time I used one was for that Ham and Egg Salad sandwich and boy was that yummy!!

I also brought a box of more of the Greek pasta salad with a star shaped egg. I had wanted to take a picture, but Mr. Pikko snagged the camera for something at work.

Ham, Avocado, & Egg Salad Sandwich (122)

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but last weekend I attempted to use my Dreamland egg gadget. It did not end well. In true Pikko Egg Curse fashion, I completely mucked it up. I didn't take any photos because they were that horrible. The yolks were like edible sponges, a texture I did not even know yolks could attain. The problem lay in that I didn't know how to use the device properly and therefore seriously messed things up from the start. It's hard when you can't read the directions ya know!! I learned a lot though and hopefully I can do it right on my next round.


In this picture are the egg "space maker" attachments. It comes with this really fun yolk separator thing and you pour the egg whites into the cylinder then put one of these attachments into there to "make space" in the egg whites. At the bottom of the cylinders, there is a ring for the bottom and a flat coin shaped circle to cover the bottom.

My first mistake was that I was supposed to rub this thing down all over with oil but thinking it was the same thing, I sprayed the whole thing with Pam. Bad idea, but I didn't know this. You're supposed to fill up the cylinder enough so that the egg reaches the top (more on why later) but I had no idea so I just put one egg white inside and put the space makers in. That was my second mistake.

Once I put the whole contraption into the pot of water I knew something was wrong. The flat circles on the bottom had floated out and the space makers were bobbing around. This meant my precious egg whites were floundering around uncooked in the water!! I picked it up immediately and after a while, noticed little slots that allowed you to lock the space makers in place thus keeping the flat circles in place at the bottom and preventing water from coming in. Too clueless to start over and too cheap to waste 4 eggs, I proceeded with the boiling, water invasion and all.

24 minutes later I removed the Dreamland from the pot and opened the thing up to find that there was nowhere near enough egg whites in each cylinder, causing the egg cylinder to be only about 3/4 way up. And in addition to that, my egg cylinders had bubbly holes in them, probably from the water. They didn't come off very well from the space makers, but I still managed to get them out. Now I had to fill in the yolks. I poured them in to the top of the egg cylinder and put the Dreamland back on the stove. I did not know that the space makers actually detached from the locking mechanism, so I did not put the locking mechanism back on. So eventually my 3/4 cylinder size eggs with yolks in them began to rise up like buoys at sea because they weren't locked down. And even if I did lock them down, then still floated up because they weren't tall enough to hold down the flat circle at the bottom. This let even more water in.

So as a result, I had eggs basically boiling directly in water. I couldn't even really cut them. You could still see the shape of the yolk so the concept of it worked fine and Baby Girl insisted they tasted fine. I let her eat some until I tasted one myself, then I just dumped the rest. Yech!! Now I just need to lick my wounds, apply what I learned, and try again.

Although I did horribly with eggs on Saturday, I am still able to boil eggs without looking like a complete noob. This morning I made myself a ham, avocado, and egg salad sandwich for lunch.


It didn't quite fit into the lunch box I picked so I had to trim the crusts off the sides. I've used Roman Meal Honey Oat bread, 2 boiled eggs, 1 Tb mayo, 1/4 avocado, a nice thick piece of ham steak, and some lettuce. I also added salt, pepper, and thinly sliced celery to the egg salad. I used my Banana Putifresh sandwich box, which I have available for $2.99 in my store. I've used these sandwich boxes twice so far and if you refrigerate the box it really doesn't do much for toasted sandwiches. Since it didn't work out so well the last two times, I didn't do anything to the bread this time. I would just leave it out, but its got egg in it and I don't want to get sick. The box:


I think I have 5 of these available. It's pretty small, but fits a nice thick sandwich cut into thirds very well. I ate the trimmed crusts with my breakfast. For fruits I brought some grapes and some fresh papapya. In the little bottle I put some lemon juice, which is what I usually eat papaya with. I don't know if people on the mainland get to eat fresh papaya, but I've eaten the dried stuff and the frozen stuff and boy is it nasty. I suppose its because I don't like overly sweet fruits and that's why I have to eat it with lemon.


I had told the OOTers at Allakhazam that I would try to make a 9000 bento for my 9k post ding, but I ended up falling asleep with the kiddos again so maybe with my 10k ding I'll give it a whirl.

Zebra Bento & Countdown

Yet another reason why I am mental, I dragged the family to Don Quijote (formerly Daiei, formerly Holiday Mart) to look for good items to use in my bento #100, which I thought was going to be today's one. Well lucky thing I came home and triple counted my bentos cause this is actually bento #96! Oh well... the things I bought should hold up fine until then. But from today I will do a countdown. Three actually.

Bento Countdown to 100: 4!
Days until UH Football: 9!
Days until UFC 74: 2!

Granted our opening game is like the joke of all college football but hey, I'm still excited to see Colt throwing again and to see how the team is shaping up this year. A game against a seriously outmatched underdog makes me worry a lot less than opening against Alabama like last year. So, this is at the very least good for my nerves. I'm still nervous since losing to this team would ruin everything, but it's just a little teeny nervousness. What I am nervous about is our season tickets. Where the hell are they??

And yes, we're having another UFC party this weekend, so I'll have to watch what I eat tomorrow because I know I'll probably end up overeating Saturday night.

On to the bento! Today I have made an entry for bentochallenge! The theme this week is favorite song and although I don't have any one single favorite song, this one that I did is definitely high up there. The sandwich the zebra rests on is a turkey and avocado sandwich on Roman Meal Honey Oat bread, so that will count as 3 points. (since I cut off the crusts) The zebra is made out of Swiss cheese and nori cutouts. I'm quite proud of him as I did all the cutting freehand. No printouts this time! His eyes and nostrils are made out of black sesame seeds.


He's wearing a red bell pepper sweater. I wasn't sure this would be clear so that's why I added in the yellow zig zag. At the top are the letters HELLO carved out of bell peppers as well. This word is part of the hint to the song, so pay attention to that too! On the right side I put a KCCA salad for Mr. Zebra to eat. A close up view:


And now for the answer:









Take a guess!














Mr. Zebra by Tori Amos

Lyrics:

Hello Mr. Zebra
Can I have you sweater
Cause it's cold cold cold
In my hole hole hole
Ratatouille Strychnine
Sometimes she's a friend of mine
With a gigantic whirlpool
That will blow your mind

Hello Mr. Zebra
Ran into some confusion with a Mrs. Crocodile
Furry mussels marching on
She thinks she's Kaiser Wilhelm
Or a civiliaes syllabub
To blow your mind
Figure it out
She's a goodtime fella
She got a little fund to fight for Moneypenny's rights
Figure it out
She's a goodtime fella
Too bad the burial was premature she said
And smiled

So you see, he's Mr. Zebra and he's wearing a sweater which Ms. Amos wants. :D

If you've never heard the song of course you'll think I'm nutters for liking it and that Tori Amos is clearly singing more than two bricks short of a full load, but if you listen to it, it's a really cute and chipper song. It's very short and is old school Tori back when she still sang with only her piano.

One last thing, a friend from Allakhazam is a finalist on Hunt for the Hunter so that she can be a guest star on the Sci-Fi show Ghost Hunters. Please vote for her! She is the first video displayed, Brittany Beaulac!

Turkey Croquette

Last night we had my niece's top choice for dinner, turkey croquette. It's something relatively new on my MIL's menu, popping up maybe 1-2 years ago. It's very yummy! I think she puts oyster sauce or something in it, whatever it is, there's no need for ketchup or any other kind of condiment unlike corned beef hash. Since it consists of potatoes, ground turkey, and panko I count this patty as just one point for the panko.


I took this all in one photo because I knew it would turn out bad and I didn't want to have two shameful pictures to display today. Lately whenever I take pictures in a yellow bento box or a pink bento box the picture looks really bad. Not sure what I'm doing different as my Princess Bonbon bento and Fried Ahi Poke pictures came out great.

I cut up the patty to display it better and made an onigiri bear with a mold that my Aunty K sent to me. (thank you!) I laid half a red bell pepper on top of it for color and veggies. In the bottom layer I have 1/4 an egg salad sandwich. I made this because I had the boiled egg leftover from yesterday's bento (which only contained 2 slices of egg). I had a whole 1/2 sandwich, but the kids saw me making it and busted out the protest signs until I gave them each a piece. Still, it worked out as I was able to put in more veggies and some green grapes we bought at Costco.

Speaking of Costco, I dunno if people have noticed this, but almost everything there is about $2 more expensive than it used to be. The romaine lettuce that used to be $3.49 is now $5.49, the bell peppers which used to be $4.99 is now $6.99, the milk which used to be $3.79 is now $4.99, the Honey Bunches of Oats looks like a smaller box, used to be $4.59 is now $6.49, etc. The prices on tons of things are going way up so be sure to be careful what you are buying there now as it's definitely NOT the price bargain place it used to be. I've only noticed this in the last month or so, but it sucks nonetheless.

Anyway, overall the lunch I count as 4 points. 1 for the panko, 2 for the onigiri, and 1 for the bread (half a slice). I have some Miracle Whip Light in the egg salad but it's so little bit it wouldn't add up to anything at all. (about 1/2 tsp)

Kim Chee Crab Sandwich

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I sure had a productive one! Folded a pile of laundry backed up since like February or something crazy like that, opened my bento store, went to a bon dance in Waipahu, got Rank 8 in FFXI, and I even managed to do a Pikko Pots update! Go me!

I had bought crab last week but forgot about it so I had a whole 1/2 lb tub in the fridge. I didn't want to just bring a KCCA salad for lunch so I tried something new by making my own "seafood salad" sandwich. It's quite expensive points wise, coming out to 5.5 points, just for a sandwich!! Each slice of Roman Meal Honey Oat bread is 2 points (sob) and I added 1 1/2 Tbsp of Miracle Whip Light, which is 1.5 points. Ouch!

I toasted the bread too much so it was quite frustrating to cut it. I even sharpened my knife before slicing and it was still rock hard. Plus with a sandwich that thick you know I ended up squishing everything all over the place and then shoved it back in. Anyway, I wanted to include the last of my almost dead avocado, so I mashed it up and mixed it up with my thinly sliced lettuce so that it would stay in nicely. If I'd used just plain chopped lettuce it's likely I'd have ended up flinging my sandwich around the kitchen like a wild monkey. That stuff is so hard to handle, especially when you're chopping it like that! I added some sliced bell peppers for color and to eat more veggies.

I mentioned going to a bon dance in Waipahu. It was the Waipahu Soto Zen Temple Taiyoji on Waipahu street and I thought it was a good one. They had a sizable crowd dancing and I even got to dance to Fukushima Ondo this time, though I only did the footwork because I was holding Baby Girl while doing it. That gets pretty tiring after a while obviously, so thankfully she requested we get out of line after one circle of the yagura tower. Buddy was having loads of fun driving Mr. Pikko crazy by running all over the parking lot and ramming people's feet with the stroller. Unfortunately we only stayed an hour because Baby Girl had a stomach ache. Still, first time this season I got to dance! We'll be in Kona next weekend and I'm hoping that I can convince my brother or cousins to go to the one there. It starts at 8 pm so I'm hoping maybe we could go around 10. But I'm there for my cousin's wedding reception so if there's no time, then no big deal. I just can't resist the thought of going to a Big Island one again.

Our tomato garden is really starting to pick up now and our corn plants have sprouted. How exciting!

Re: The store

I added the matching Putifresh bento bags this morning!

Green Eggs but No Ham

Sunday when I made the butter yaki I told Mr. Pikko that now that I'd gone through all the trouble of making butter yaki, his mom would make it sometime this week. Lo and behold, I arrive at her house last night to find them cooking... butter yaki!! I lol'd so hard. Anyway, I figure eating loads of butter and sugar 4 meals in a row isn't good diet practice, so I opted for a more healthier lunch today. The bentochallenge this week is "green" so while making my egg salad sandwich this morning, I decided to participate.


This is one of my new boxes that I got at that JP outlet store. It was only 99 cents! The sides collapse and it folds up nicely to fit right into the cover, which I forgot to photograph. It's very compact when folded up, making it a great space saver! I made the egg salad with two eggs, a bit of Miracle Whip Light, salt, pepper, and green food coloring. On the side is some sliced red bell pepper and some hummus in a little food cup with a nori face.

About to go eat it right now! :D

Pot Roast Sandwich

I was feeling inventive this morning and turned my pot roast leftovers lunch (courtesy of MIL) into a pot roast sandwich! I'd taken a piece of meat, a carrot, and a potato so I had plenty to work with.


I cut the crust off of two slices of Roman Meal Honey Oat bread and toasted them til they were crispy. I cut them into two pieces and then mashed up the potato and the carrot, using them as spreads on opposite sides of the bread. I pulled the meat apart (which was great for getting all the veins of fat out) and squished it together, securing it with a food pick. Let's hope it tastes as good as it looks! That is, if you think it looks good... I like it. I added some leftover edamame and a mini Babybel. This lighting issue is killing me. I have to go buy a lamp soon. It could also be some setting on my camera that appeared and I don't know how to shut off...


For my fruits layer I have a chopped mango and some red grapes, which thankfully are grown in the USA. With all the food scares lately we are trying as much as possible to buy only USA or local produce.

Ok.. so I was feeling so inventive that I completely forgot about the Sanrio theme for bentochallenge, *sob*. Maybe I'll try a simple nori Bad Batz Maru onigiri tomorrow for my breakfast bento at the airport.

I totally pigged out yesterday. My lunch ended up being a whole lotta food and my tummy was ready to burst, which is really bad. Part of Core means to never eat until that point. ; ; Then when I was shopping for travel knickknacks I made the mistake of walking past the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory booth in Pearlridge and ended up getting a Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nut Bear. It cost me almost 4 freakin' dollars but damn that was one good hunk of candy!! I ate the whole thing too, haha! Two days from now my weight will show for it. But despite all the rice and candy, I weighed in at 128.2 this morning. I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong with me. Either that or all my stairclimbing has just really helped upped my metabolism.

Loving Turkey Sandwiches

I am famous (at least within my own little household) for buying food on sale and then forgetting that I have it until either:

a) I want to use it, but it's long expired or
b) I accidentally find it the day before expiration

"B" was the situation I found myself in last night while deciding what to make for today's bento. I'd bought two packs of the Oscar Mayer deli style turkey breast cause sometimes I like to just sit there and eat it by itself. Well it has a 'use by' date of yesterday, so I had to go with turkey sandwiches again even though I'd just recently done the star shaped turkey sandwiches.


There's a bed of sliced baby carrots underneath the sandwiches and I intend to put the tomatoes on top of the kim chee crab avocado salad I brought. And now that I mention that, I'm going to start referring to that as "KCCA Salad" just so that I can shorten it a bit. On the bottom layer is cubed cigar mango, which my dad was kind enough to buy at the swap meet in Hilo and ship over along with what seemed like my son's weight in lychee. Thanks Dad!!

Cigar mango is hands down my favorite mango, ahead of even the great revered Hayden mango! I haven't had Hayden mango in a while actually. My grandfather-in-law had a Hayden and a Puree mango tree, but since he passed away the house has been rented out and we don't get to pick those any more. :( He had some big bambucha ones too. I think the biggest I had was like the size of two softballs. I've tried to buy at the Kam swap meet but since the sellers there have all stolen their mangos they don't really know what kind they are and pretty much automatically just call it hayden. Plus some of them are so scared someone will steal them before they can, they pick them so green you might as well make pickle mango out of it. I dunno, maybe I'll have better luck this summer.

I was 131.8 this morning, so I've got my work cut out for me this week. Leave it to me to blow last week's progress all in one day! D:

Turkey Sandwiches

I was able to make my lightbox last night and it didn't come out so good. So much for "couldn't be easier to use"! I should have known that something labeled so easy was going to have the fine print "except for short dorky Asian girls named Crystal" where I wouldn't see it. Good thing it only cost me like a dollar to make it! It's not completely sucky though, as I was able to use it for my pictures this morning. I do like the seamless white background so that I don't have to wrestle with my dirty white kitchen towels anymore. I blame me not having good lights. These photos were taken after I removed the top side tracing paper and then placed the lightbox under the stove lights.

I've really missed bread and since I had a 2 point lunch and an all Core dinner yesterday (steak, salad, onions, zucchini) it seemed ok to finally eat some. Lunch today consists of star shaped turkey sandwiches made with Roman Meal Honey Oat Wheat bread, lettuce, 96% FF turkey, bell pepper, and Laughing Cow Light Swiss used instead of mayonnaise.


The swiss is a pretty soft cheese, so I just mushed it up a little bit and then it spread onto the bread with no problems. I used bell pepper because it's a brighter red and tomatoes were going to be too messy. Filled in the spaces with some julienned baby carrots and grape tomatoes. I bought a small box of the grape tomatoes at Foodland. They were pretty expensive at $3.99 for the box, but at least I can take comfort in the fact that I won't be letting 100+ tomatoes rot in my fridge. Plus, these particular grape tomatoes are super sweet!


My sister-in-law gave us a pack of pre-cut fruits including honeydew melon, watermelon, cantaloupe, and pineapple so I sliced them up and put them into my fruit layer then added two strawberry flowers. Now that I look at the picture I'm sad that I didn't notice that my strawberry flowers don't have their seeds aligned. :(


I may be tired of lomi salmon, but I'm still not tired of Kim Chee Crab & Avocado Salad!! This stuff really is SO good and so I couldn't resist packing another one today. Mr. Pikko keeps raiding the tub of crab and saying "ohhh so good!" so I have to use it if I want to eat any! ^_^

Bento challenge this week is Sci Fi TV and though I'm dying to do some kind of Battlestar Galactica bento, I have no fracking clue what to make...

Children's Day!

Today is Children's Day! Excuse me... Boy's Day. I'm not sure when Boy's Day became Children's Day, but the poor guys got their holiday sniped from them, no idea when. When I was growing up I only knew of Girl's Day and Boy's Day. Anyway, as a treat for the kiddies I made them each a bento. I started off making the same one for both of them, which featured peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but as I was pbing the third slice of bread I remembered that Buddy isn't supposed to eat nuts until he's 3. (wtf 3)

Realizing I had to make two completely different lunches, I decided to make them very specific to each of their likes. Baby Girl got peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into circles, then cut in half. One half looked ugly so I ate it. (ha!) Four pieces weren't going to fit anyway, so that worked out. There was some empty space, so I filled that with Okinawan sweet potato. The other side had cubed mango, a cheese wedge, and 4 reduced fat Triscuit. I tried to find her tiny little toy food knife to pack, but I couldn't find it. I even looked under the couch and in the process I discovered 5 books, miscellaneous toy utensils, a watercolor set, a packet of cooking chopsticks I really could have been using before today, and one icky roach. :(

Anyway, she loved it and miraculously ate everything. She especially loved using the pick to eat the mango!


For Buddy's lunch I sliced up the last piece of leftover teri beef and added julienned carrots. I had bought some onigiri flavor packets and so I made him some little onigiri with the salmon flavored one. The other side had sweet potato and the cutest tiny strawberries, which I found in the boxes of strawberries I bought the other day. They were so adorable, just like the ones you grow in your backyard! He ate everything in his lunch too, so both were very successful with the kids. ^_^


We stopped at Windward Mall and I managed to drag us all to the Marukai store there. I found some $1.49 2-tier bento boxes, veggie shaped soy sauce bottles, and more food picks. I was going to pack a salad for myself so I could have a Core lunch, but then I weighed myself and I'd dropped over half a pound from yesterday. So I ate at Arby's! *gasp* But I was good, ate a grilled chicken sandwich and when I saw there was mayo on the bun, I stopped eating the top half.